Movie Review - - THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN - NYTimes.com THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN By Vincent Canby Published: September 18, 1981 We are in Dorset, Thomas Hardy country. More specifically we are in the South English fishing village of Lyme Regis, on Lyme Bay, and, to be more specific still, we are on the quay, looking out over the ancient, handsome, serpentine seawall known as the Cobb. The weather is appropriately dour and the sea beyond the Cobb looks thick and heavy with time, its movements having less to do with weather than with the momentum it shares with the planets. In the foreground, a busy motion-picture crew is setting up a shot. They are interlopers, scavengers of natural scenery. There are cameras, cables, lights, reflectors, prop men, makeup for the assistants, the director and his star, an authoritative, preoccupied young woman wrapped in a large black cloak. "Action.

Camera." The clapboard is clapped in front of the camera, and production commences on a film titled The French Lieutenant's Woman, a romantic melodrama set in Lyme Regis in 1867 and which we enter as the camera records this initial scene: Charles Smithson, one of London's most handsome and eligible bachelors, out walking on the Cobb with his fiancée, Ernestina Freeman, first sets eyes on the mysterious, cloaked woman whom the respectable citizens of Lyme Regis call "Tragedy," whom the less-respectable citizens call "the French lieutenant's woman" and whom other mencertainly not gentlemencall "a hoer," and whose name is actually Sarah Woodruff. In this fashion commences Karel Reisz's immaculately visualized adaptation of John Fowles's best-selling book The French Lieutenant's Woman, which has the form and style of a mid-Victorian novel if ever a mid-Victorian novel had been written by a novelist with the benefit of the hindsight available to an author writing in the 1960's. It was, of course, in the sixties that Mr.

Fowles wrote his long, chatty talefull of asides and speculations on everything from Darwin and evolution to Freud, Marx, Jane Austen, Dickens, twentieth-century desperation, and the shape of the novelabout the low-born governess named Sarah Woodruff. The book is not only about Sarah, who, refusing to accept her station in life, allows herself to be compromised by a passing French naval officer, but it is also about Charles Smithson, who unknowingly becomes the unfortunate instrument of her emancipation. The French Lieutenant's Woman, which opens today at the Little Carnegie Theater, is an astonishingly beautiful film, acted to the elegant hilt by Meryl Streep as the ultimately unreliable Sarah; Jeremy Irons, who looks a lot like the young Laurence Olivier of Wuthering Heights, as Charles Smithson; and by a cast of splendid supporting actors of the sort that only England seems to possess. Why England? Possibly because of its theater, maybe even because of its climate. The subject is worthy of a Fowlesian discourse. The film's beauty is dazzling.

It stands withor perhaps a little ahead ofStanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Roman Polanski's Tess, but it also must be conceded, quickly and without too stern a reproach, that there is less to The French Lieutenant's Woman than meets the dazzled eye. In adapting Mr. Fowles's novel, and in attempting to find some equivalent to Mr. Fowles's voice commenting on the events of the story from a twentieth-century perspective, Harold Pinter, who wrote the screenplay, has elected to add a parallel story, one about the love affair of the actress, Anna, and the actor, Mike, who are playing Sarah and Charles in the film-within-the-film. Thus we cut back and forth between the narrative of The French Lieutenant's Woman, as Mr. Fowles wrote it, and Mr. Pinter's addition, the fleetingly satisfying, less doomed than simply insubstantial liaison between Anna and Mike in the course of the production of their film. The device must have sounded better in story conferences than it plays in this film. This contemporary frame is peculiarly flat.

It illuminates nothing more about the differences between the manners and mores of 1867 and 1981 than any reasonably alert 1981 adult might be expected to bring into the movie theater uninstructed. It certainly doesn't give Mr. Reisz anything comparable to Mr. Fowles's opportunities to quote at what sometimes seems pure name-dropping length from Matthew Arnold, Hardy, Austen, Darwin, Freud, and even William Manchester (The Death of the President). It is, I suppose, to the credit of both Mr. Reisz and Mr. Pinter that although the contemporary frame is not at all comparable to the novelist's voice in the book, neither is it so intrusive that we groan audibly every time we cut from the period narrative to the present story of the moviemakers. What in the book passes for philosophical reflection becomes show-business wit in the movie. Much of this is fun, as when we see an actress of the stature of Patience Collier, who plays the ferociously stingy, self-righteous Mrs.

Poulteney, Sarah Woodruff's employer in the film-within, relaxing at a production-break party, chicly dressed and puffing on a nicotine-packed cigarette. As a number of readers of The French Lieutenant's Woman longed for a little less ambiguity in the novel, which has two different endings, a moviegoer might wish that Mr. Pinter had more fully developed Mr. Fowles's Victorian narrative, which is rich enough in characters, events, moral questions, and period details to prompt a lot of the thoughts that the novelist laid out in discourses for the reader's edification. The principal story is a good one, and it is lovingly re-enacted by Mr. Reisz, Mr. Pinter, and their performers. Miss Streep has never looked more beautiful nor has she been more in command of her talent as she switches back and forth between the lightweight movie actress and the tragic Sarah, who enters the scene as a Hardy-like victim of fate and stays on to triumph as a modern woman a century ahead of her time. Mr.

Irons seems to be one of the few actors today who could be so completely convincing as the Victorian lover who thinks he's ahead of his time, being a follower of Darwin and a socially enlightened member of his privileged class, but who finds, ultimately, that he still has a long way to go. In addition to Miss Collier, the marvelous supporting cast includes Leo McKern as the gruff, old Lyme Regis doctor; the beautiful Lynsey Baxter as the surprisingly articulate, strong-willed Ernestina; Hilton McRae as Sam, Charles Smithson's ambitious manservant; and Charlotte Mitchell as Mrs. Tranter, Ernestina's jolly aunt. Among others who make The French Lieutenant's Woman the best big-budget English film in years are Freddie Francis, director of photography; Assheton Gorton, production designer, and Whoever He/She is who shaped the Dorset coast and countryside into the spectacular, eerie, infinitely photogenic landscape it is today as it was then.

THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN (MOVIE) Directed by Karel Reisz; written by Harold Pinter, based on the novel by John Fowles; director of photography, Freddie Francis; edited by John Bloom; music by Carl Davis; production designer, Assheton Gorton; produced by Leon Clore; released by United Artists. Running time: 127 minutes. With: Meryl Streep (Sarah/Anna), Jeremy Irons (Charles/ Mike), Hilton McRae (Sam), Emily Morgan (Mary), Charlotte Mitchell (Mrs. Tranter), Lynsey Baxter (Ernestina), Jean Faulds (Cook), Peter Vaughan (Mr. Freeman), Colin Jeavons (Vicar), and Patience Collier (Mrs. Poulteney). 'THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN' - NYTimes.com 'THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN' By VINCENT CANBY Published: September 18, 1981 WE are in Dorset, Thomas Hardy country.

More specifically we are in the South English fishing village of Lyme Regis, on Lyme Bay, and, to be more specific still, we are on the quay, looking out over the ancient, handsome, serpentine seawall known as the Cobb. The weather is appropriately dour and the sea beyond the Cobb looks thick and heavy with time, its movements having less to do with weather than with the momentum it shares with the planets. In the foreground, a busy motion-picture crew is setting up a shot. They are interlopers, scavengers of natural scenery. There are cameras, cables, lights, reflectors, prop men, makeup for the assistants, the director and his star, an authoritative, preoccupied young woman wrapped in a large black cloak. ''Action.

Camera.'' The clapboard is clapped in front of the camera, and production commences on a film titled ''The French Lieutenant's Woman,'' a romantic melodrama set in Lyme Regis in 1867 and which we enter as the camera records this initial scene: Charles Smithson, one of London's most handsome and eligible bachelors, ou t walking on the Cobb with his fiancee, Ernestina Freeman, firs t sets eyes on the mysterious, cloaked woman whom the respectable c itizens of Lyme Regis call ''Tragedy,'' whom the less-respecta ble citizens call ''the French lieutenant's woman'' and whom other me n - certainly not gentlemen - call ''a hoer,'' and whosename is actua lly Sarah Woodruff. In this fashion commences Karel Reisz's immaculately visualized adaptation of John Fowles's best-selling book ''The French Lieutenant's Woman,'' which has the form and style of a mid-Victorian novel if ever a mid-Victorian novel been written by a novelist with the benefit of the hindsight available to an author writing in the 1960's. It was, of course, in the 60's that Mr.

Fowles wrote his long, chatty tale -full of asides and speculations on everything from Darwin and evolution to Freud, Marx, Jane Austen, Dickens, 20thcentury desperation and the shape of the novel - about the low-born governess named Sarah Woodruff. The book is not only about Sarah, who, refusing to accept her station in life, allows herself to be compromised by a passing French naval officer, but it is also about Charles Smithson, who unknowingly becomes the unfortunate instrument of her emanicpation. ''The French Lieutenant's Woman,'' which opens today at the Little Carnegie Theater, is an astonishingly beautiful film, acted to the elegant hilt by Meryl Streep as the ultimately unreliable Sarah; Jeremy Irons, who looks a lot like the young Laurence Olivier of ''Wuthering Heights,'' as Charles Smithson, and by a cast of splendid supporting actors of the sort that only England seems to possess. Why England? Possibly because of its theater, maybe even because of its climate. The subject is worthy of a Fowlesian discourse. The film's beauty is dazzling.

It stands with - or perhaps a little ahead of - Stanley Kubrick's ''Barry Lyndon'' and Roman Polanski's ''Tess,'' but it also must be conceded, quickly and without too stern a reproach, that there is less to ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' than meets the dazzled eye. In adapting Mr. Fowles's novel, and in attempting to find some equivalent to Mr. Fowles's voice commenting on the events of the story from a 20th-century perspective, Harold Pinter, who wrote the screenplay, has elected to add a parallel story, one about the love affair of the actress, Anna, and the actor, Mike, who are playing Sarah and Charles in the film-within-the-film. Thus we cut back and forth between the narrative of ''The French Lieutenant's Woman,'' as Mr. Fowles wrote it, and Mr. Pinter's addition, the fleetingly satisfying, less doomed than simply insubstantial liaison between Anna and Mike in the course of the production of their film. The device must have sounded better in story conferences than it plays in this film. This contemporary frame is peculiarly flat.

It illuminates nothing more about the differences between the manners and mores of 1867 and 1981 than any reasonably alert 1981 adult might be expected to bring into the movie theater uninstructed. It certainly doesn't give Mr. Reisz anything comparable to Mr. Fowles's opportunities to quote at what sometimes seems pure name-dropping len gth from Matthew Arnold, Hardy, Austen, Da rwin, Freud and even William Manchester (''The Death of the Presid ent''). It is, I suppose, to the credit of both Mr. Reisz and Mr. Pinter that although the contemporary frame is not at all comparable to the novelist's voice in the book, neither is it so intrusive that we groan audibly every time we cut from the period narrative to the present story of the movie makers. What in the book passes for philosophical reflection becomes show-business wit in the movie. Much of this is fun, as when we see an actress of the stature of Patience Collier, who plays the ferociously stingy, self-righteous Mrs.

Poulteney, Sarah Woodruff's employer in the film-within, relaxing at a production-break party, chicly dressed and puffing on a nicotinepacked cigarette. 1 The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles - Author Biography - LitLovers • Where—Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK • Education—University of Edinburg; B.A. Oxford University • Awards—Silver Pen Award John Robert Fowles was an English novelist and essayist. In 2008, The Times (of London) named Fowles among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945." Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, the son of Gladys May Richards and Robert John Fowles. Gladys Richards belonged to an Essex family originally from London as well. The Richards family moved to Westcliff-on-Sea during 1918, as Spanish Flu swept through Europe, for Essex was said to have a healthy climate. Robert met Gladys Richards at a tennis club in Westcliff-on-Sea during 1924.

Though she was ten years younger, and he in bad health from the World War I, they were married a year later on 18 June 1925. Nine months and two weeks later Gladys gave birth to John Robert Fowles. Fowles spent his childhood attended by his mother and by his cousin Peggy Fowles, 18 years old at the time of his birth, who was his nursemaid and close companion for ten years. Fowles attended Alleyn Court Preparatory School. The work of Richard Jefferies and his character Bevis were Fowles's favorite books as a child. He was an only child until he was 16 years old. Education During 1939, Fowles won a position at Bedford School, a two-hour train journey north of his home. His time at Bedford coincided with the Second World War. Fowles was a student at Bedford until 1944. He became Head Boy and was also an athletic standout: a member of the rugby-football third team, the Fives first team and captain of the cricket team, for which he was bowler.

After leaving Bedford School during 1944, Fowles enrolled in a Naval Short Course at Edinburgh University. Fowles was prepared to receive a commission in the Royal Marines. He completed his training on 8 May 1945 — VE Day. Fowles was assigned instead to Okehampton Camp in the countryside near Devon for two years. During 1947, after completing his military service, Fowles entered New College, Oxford, where he studied both French and German, although he stopped studying German and concentrated on French for his BA. Fowles was undergoing a political transformation. Upon leaving the marines he wrote, "I ... began to hate what I was becoming in life—a British Establishment young hopeful. I decided instead to become a sort of anarchist." It was also at Oxford that Fowles first considered life as a writer, particularly after reading existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Though Fowles did not identify as an existentialist, their writing, like Fowles', was motivated from a feeling that the world was wrong. Teaching Career Fowles spent his early adult life as a teacher.

His first year after Oxford was spent at the University of Poitiers. At the end of the year, he received two offers: one from the French department at Winchester, the other "from a ratty school in Greece," Fowles said, "Of course, I went against all the dictates of common sense and took the Greek job." During 1951, Fowles became an English master at the Anargyrios and Korgialenios School of Spetses on the Peloponnesian island of Spetsai, a critical part of Fowles's life, as the island which would later serve as the setting of his novel The Magus. Fowles was happy in Greece, especially outside of the school. He wrote poems that he later published, and became close to his fellow exiles. But during 1953 Fowles and the other masters at the school were all dismissed for trying to institute reforms, and Fowles returned to England. On the island of Spetsai, Fowles had grown fond of Elizabeth Christy, who was married to one of the other teachers.

Christy's marriage was already ending because of the relationship with Fowles, and though they returned to England at the same time, they were no longer in each other's company. It was during this period that Fowles began drafting The Magus . His separation from Elizabeth did not last long. On 2 April 1954 they were married and Fowles became stepfather to Elizabeth's daughter from her first marriage, Anna. After his marriage, Fowles taught English as a foreign language to students from other countries for nearly ten years at St. Godric's College, an all-girls in Hampstead, London. Writing Career During late 1960, though he had already drafted The Magus, Fowles began working on The Collector . He finished his first draft in a month, but spent more than a year making revisions before showing it to his agent. Michael S. Howard, the publisher at Jonathan Cape was enthusiastic about the manuscript. The book was published during 1963 and when the paperback rights were sold in the spring of that year it was "probably the highest price that had hitherto been paid for a first novel," according to Howard.

The success of his novel meant that Fowles was able to stop teaching and devote himself full-time to a literary career. The Collector became a film in 1965. Against the counsel of his publisher, Fowles insisted that his second book published be The Aristos, a non-fiction collection of philosophy. Afterward, he set about collating all the drafts he had written of what would become his most studied work, The Magus (1965), based in part on his experiences in Greece. During 1965 Fowles left London, moving to a farm, Underhill, in Dorset, where the isolated farm house became the model for "The Dairy" in the book Fowles was then writing, The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). The farm was too remote, "total solitude gets a bit monotonous," Fowles remarked, and during 1968 he and his wife moved to Lyme Regis in Dorset, where he lived in Belmont House, also used as a setting for parts of The French Lieutenant's Woman. In the same year, he adapted The Magus for cinema.

The film version of The Magus (1968) was generally considered awful; when Woody Allen was asked whether he'd make changes in his life if he had the opportunity to do it all over again, he jokingly replied he'd do "everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching The Magus." The French Lieutenant's Woman was made into a film during 1981 with a screenplay by the British playwright Harold Pinter (who would later receive a Nobel laureate in Literature) and was nominated for an Oscar. Later Years Fowles lived the rest of his life in Lyme Regis. His works The Ebony Tower (1974), Daniel Martin (1977), Mantissa (1981), and A Maggot (1985) were all written from Belmont House. His wife Elizabeth died in 1990. Fowles became a member of the Lyme Regis community, serving as the curator of the Lyme Regis Museum from 1979–1988, retiring from the museum after having a mild stroke. Fowles was involved occasionally in politics in Lyme Regis, and occasionally wrote letters to the editor advocating preservation.

Despite this involvement, Fowles was generally considered reclusive. In 1998, he was quoted in the New York Times Book Review as saying, "Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation." Fowles, with his second wife Sarah by his side, died in Axminster Hospital, 5 miles from Lyme Regis on 5 November 2005. (From Wikipedia.) The French Lieutenant's Woman | VHSCollector.com - Your Analog Videotape Archive The French Lieutenant's Woman The French Lieutenant's Woman ( 1981 ) Submitted By Sign in or Register to leave a comment Keywords Notes / Links She was lost from the moment she saw him. John Fowles' original novel The French Lieutenant's Woman was distinguished by a literary technique that involved telling a story of Victorian sexual and social oppression within the bounds of a 1970s viewpoint. How does one convey this time-frame dichotomy on film? The decision made by director Karel Reisz and Harold Pinter was to frame Fowles' basic plot within a "modern" context of their own making.

While we watch as Sarah (Meryl Streep), a 19th-century Englishwoman ruined by an affair with a French lieutenant, enters into another disastrous relationship with principled young Charles (Jeremy Irons), we are constantly made aware that what we're seeing is only a film. This is done by surrounding the story with a modern narrative, focusing on a movie production company which is on location--filming The French Lieutenant's Woman. Meryl Streep doubles in the role of Sara and the American actress who plays her, while Jeremy Irons essays the dual role of Charles and the handsome Briton playing Charles. Likewise, everyone else in the cast is seen as "themselves" and as their French Lieutenant's Woman characters. Not surprisingly, the "real" Streep and Irons enter into an affair which closely parallels their characters' relationship. The commercial TV version of French Lieutenant's Woman eliminates 30 minutes' worth of "extraneous" scenes. The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the novel by John Fowles. The music score is by Carl Davis and the cinematography by Freddie Francis.

The film stars Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons with Hilton McRae, Jean Faulds, Peter Vaughan, Colin Jeavons, Liz Smith, Patience Collier, Richard Griffiths, David Warner, Alun Armstrong, Penelope Wilton, and Leo McKern. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards: Streep was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress, and the film was nominated for Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), but both lost to On Golden Pond. The film intercuts the stories of two affairs: one a Victorian period drama involving the gentleman palaeontologist Charles Smithson and the complex and troubled Sarah Woodruff, "The French Lieutenant's Woman"; the other between the actors "Mike" and "Anna", playing the lead roles in a modern filming of the story. In both segments, Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep play the lead roles, but in line with John Fowles' source novel having multiple endings, the two otherwise parallel stories have different outcomes. In the Victorian story, Charles enters into an intensely emotional relationship with Sarah, an enigmatic and self-inflicted outcast he meets while visiting his fiance Ernestina (Lynsey Baxter) in Lyme Regis.

The two meet secretly in the Lyme Regis Undercliff, and eventually have sex in an Exeter hotel. This leads to Charles breaking off his engagement, but Sarah then disappears. In social disgrace after being sued for breach of promise, Charles searches for Sarah, fearing she has become a prostitute in London. After three years, Sarah, who has a job as a governess in the Lake District, contacts Charles to explain that she needed time to find herself. Despite Charles's initial anger, he forgives her, and the two are reconciled. They are finally seen boating on Lake Windermere. In the modern story, the American actress Anna and the English actor Mike, both married, are shown as having an established affair during the making of the film. As filming concludes, although Mike wishes to continue the relationship, Anna becomes increasingly cool about the affair, and avoids Mike in favour of spending time with her French husband. During the film wrap party, Anna leaves without saying goodbye; Charles calls out to her from an upstairs window as she drives away, using her character name, Sarah.

Release Date: September 18, 1981 from United Artists Boxoffice: $26,890,068 2014: $76,994,600 The French Lieutenant's Woman Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 18 January 2017 9:37 AM, PST NEWS 66 out of 76 people found the following review useful: Complex yet Stunning from England 24 January 2002 I came to the film adaptation of 'The French Lieutnant's Woman' with initial trepidation. As anyone who has read the John Fowles novel will appreciate, this is one text for which adaptation would not be a walk in the park. How unfounded my uncertainty was! The director, writer and actors did a fantastic job in adapting a complex novel to the screen. The film works impeccably as a metaphor for what the novel was trying to achieve, which is all we should expect from film adaptations. Stand out features include: The actors are perfect. I can't say anything new about Meryl Streep, who I believe to be the finest actress ever to have graced the cinema screen.

Here (as ever) she is perfect - if you didn't know she was American you would believe she is English, the accent is so accurate. She embodies the character of Sarah perfectly with a multi layered performance, managing to convey Sarah's dignity, her independence and her complex mystery. My only criticism (if you can call it that) is that she is too beautiful! According to the novel, Sarah is "not beautiful by any period's standards", but with her porcelain complexion and delicate features, Meryl Streep is stunning. As Charles, Jeremy Irons gives a commanding performance, managing to convey the character's genteel veneer and the inner passion that lurks beneath. Both actors are excellent, and the chemistry between the leads is tangible. A "Story within a story". The way in which Harold Pinter weaves the Fowles tale with the lives of Anna and Mike - the actresses who are playing the Victorian lovers, is inspired. The manner in which the film flits from Victorian age to modern day, is the filmic way of conveying Fowles's tendency in the novel to judge his Victorian characters and their era by Twentieth Century standards. Some critics have found this device jarring - I find it clever and affecting.

Overall, 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' is a beautiful, haunting tale of repressed love and social hypocrisy. Right from the opening shot, where we see the image of Sarah on the Cobb looking out to sea, the viewer is grabbed and drawn into this complex world. The actors are faultless, the screenplay ingenious and the cinematography and score, haunting. If you normally find yourself disappointed by novel adaptations, look no further than 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' to show you that when a work is adapted properly, the results can be stunning. Was the above review useful to you? 51 out of 67 people found the following review useful: A multi-chambered Nautilus shell fossilized in stone. from Indianapolis, IN 24 January 2003 This movie opens with a scene of an archaeologist chipping at a multi-chambered Nautilus shell fossilized in stone. The image is apropos, as the story itself opens from chamber to ever larger chamber as it weaves two seemingly disparate stories with a clever ending. Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep are impressive as the leads in two different time lines.

In one, Streep is a woman of poor reputation who ensnares a gentleman (Irons) in the black hole of her own guilt and loss. In the other, they are the romantically involved actors making a movie about a woman of poor reputation who ensnares a gentleman. And if that sounds a little too clever, it nonetheless has more creativity and insight than typical plot-twist movie, including the most contrived and overrated movie of all time, Memento (not good enough to be called bad). There is a scene, in which Streep and Irons are rehearsing a scene from the movie, and, according to the story, it just isn't working. Then, all at once, Streep gets a look on her face, and we are transported into the past time line with a single glance from the greatest working actress and second only to Katherine Hepburn as the greatest actress of all time. The cinematography, costumes and set designs are legendary, and come from the same team that gave us The Count of Monte Christo, which featured Guy Pearce, who was in the above-mentioned Memento (it still stinks, but how's that for six degrees?).

And speaking of legends, the screenplay was written by none other than Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, and it shows. It is a sublime movie experience to watch the delicately chambered story open up, and there are scenes that are so memorable, like Streep on the misty pier, that you would swear this movie comes from the Golden Age of cinema, not the go-go eighties. The movie is emotionally draining, and Streep gives a typically high concept performance. Irons lacks something, but it's not clear what, but in the end it helps support the story by making him appear flawed enough to have been trapped in the intricate web of The French Lieutenant's Woman. Was the above review useful to you? 36 out of 45 people found the following review useful: Narrative Folding from Virginia Beach 18 August 2000 Haunting environments, two of the century's greatest film actors, one of the half-dozen or so best modern playwrights and Fowles' experiment in parallel narratives. Fowles' work was pale compared to Nabokov's "Pale Fire," for instance in building a convoluted, layered narrative, but is comparable in extent.

Here, Pinter's obsession with time refines the vision -- his "Proust Screenplay," also centered on layered time, is much studied and admired. Everything clicks here. Gorton's designs are detailed and hypnotizing, especially the use of the Lyme groin and related tunnel-like streets. Francis' camera (after "Elephant Man") captures a dim grey sky, made sharp in modern sequences. With the director, they have contrived to quote great paintings. In particular, the first shot after the three year search when Irons gets the telegram directly and obviously references a famous Monet painting -- in fact the first impressionistic painting, a turning point in the artist's perspective. Davis' music -- the only thing that spans time -- supports. And Meryl is lovely, but so different in each role. We really wonder if her modern madness created the modern affair in quest of the perfect chemistry for the Sarah role It makes Sarah's imagination deeper and more self-referential than in the book. One scene is uniquely masterful: the modern actors "walk" through a scene, then they do it again.

Streep turns on, "steps into" the role and becomes Sarah, and a moment later, she pulls the whole scene into the past. This will stick with you, I promise. The director, Reisz, is supposed to have suggested the concept to Pinter, and then attracted the very best. His tightness of vision is apparent. I wish he were still making films. In a sense he is: he literally "wrote the book" on modern film editing. Was the above review useful to you? 29 out of 36 people found the following review useful: A classic film about sexual repression past and present Author: from Philadelphia, USA 24 October 2005 I loved The French Lieutenant's Woman. The film-within-the-film is more than just an experimental device - it is actually a key feature of how the film works and part of what makes it so fascinating and enjoyable. Harold Pinter, who wrote the screenplay and has a Nobel Prize for Literature, should be given some credit for knowing what he is doing. The two stories in the film are juxtaposed to provide intriguing contrasts and comparisons.

At first, I found myself thinking that the point was to show how much easier and more uncomplicated sexual relationships are in the twentieth century, but as the story develops, and as more entanglements obstructing their happiness are revealed, I began to realize that the film may really be trying to show that we are not so different from the Victorians after all: we have our own obsessions, repressions and frustrations. A happy middle-class family proves to be as much of an obstacle to sexual gratification and fulfilment as hypocritical Victorian morality. A warning: there is no point watching this film for visible and clearly expressed emotion and a satisfyingly romantic representation of love in this film, since it makes a point of resisting that by focusing on the characters' awkward and embarrassing fumblings, and by deliberately avoiding all the clichés of period drama. The inclusion of the contemporary story line actually helps us to distance ourselves from the Victorian plot rather than drawing us into it, and makes Jeremy Irons's proposal at the beginning, or the love scene in Exeter between him and Streep, more comic and ridiculous, than volcanic and romantic. But that is the point, isn't it?

Period films have a tendency to ignore how bizarre sexuality was in the past, and by romanticizing and familiarizing it, make it more easy for us to consume now. But there was no such thing as "normal" sexuality in Victorian Britain, because, as the statistic about London prostitutes in the film shows, they were all far too screwed up. And maybe we are not so different these days. It's not as if the sex industry has got any smaller since then. It's not a conventional period romance, but if you want something a little more thoughtful and interesting than that, then you will hugely enjoy this film. Apart from anything else, it has two great performances from Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep. Streep in particular is spectacularly mysterious and alluring as the object of Irons's sexual obsession. Great film. Was the above review useful to you?

32 out of 46 people found the following review useful: An inspiration to Goths everywhere from Portage, MI 19 August 2000 If you're researching the beginnings of today's Goth movement, be sure to look at this complex tale of Sarah Woodruff (Meryl Streep), a secretive, pale-skinned outcast in a 19th century English coastal town. Known to the locals as "poor tragedy," she sketches spooky self-portraits, always dresses in black and haunts the sea wall waiting for the return of a Frenchman who seduced and abandoned her. With a single, unforgettable look and such dialogue as "my only happiness is when I sleep; when I wake, the nightmare begins," Sarah bewitches visiting Londoner Charles Smithson (Jeremy Irons, in what turned out to be his big break), a paleontologist and "gentleman of leisure." The tricky screenplay by Harold Pinter contrasts the story of Sarah and Charles with the lives of actors Mike and Anna, who are playing them in a film. Offscreen, Anna is anything but Victorian, indulging in an on-location affair with Mike while her husband is away.

The contrasts between the two couples born 100 years apart make for one of the most intriguing films of the early 1980s, and the performances by Irons and Streep are predictably outstanding. Was the above review useful to you? 20 out of 28 people found the following review useful: A wonderful movie from california 31 July 1999 This film is visually fascinating as well as dramatically satisfying. Every camera shot is breathtaking - this includes both stories. The script is brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed the post-modernist self-awareness - the blurred line between one reality and the other calls the entire experience into question. But I knew I was watching modern actors playing in a period piece and I was still caught up in the story, both stories - which mirror each other and make you wonder which character is influencing which performance. Irons gets to play two obsessive roles, something he seems to be really good at. Streep is enthralling and brings a third dimension to two enigmatic roles perfectly suited for her. Was the above review useful to you?

11 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Terrific -- with one major flaw from United States 15 February 2010 This film is a joy to watch -- as not many films these days are. The settings are superbly created -- the green, grotto-like woodland where Irons and Streep meet in the Victorian world of the film, the murky streets of Lyme, Exeter, and London, and the interior of the lawyer's office, for example. The Victorian part of the film emerges from the dawning of the concept of abnormal psychology (just before Freud) and is really convincing. Streep shows us that her character cannot move on emotionally until she has worked out her own madness. That constitutes a remarkable and complex performance of insanity and self-awareness inhabiting a single psyche. She earns the gentle movement out of the tunnel and onto the calm lake. The turbulence of the unconscious -- that threatening sea of which Irons has warned her -- has been subdued. Seems to me the flaw lies in the 'modern story' (as some here have pointed out).

It may be that the Streep character is trying to find a subtext for her fictional heroine, but it looks like the old ennui, so that, while her lack of concern for the relationship is understandable, his obsession with it is not. Though the garden party at the end almost gets it there. Were we shown her decision there? If so, I missed it. I like the concept of the 'two endings' and their contrast, but the ending in the 20th century was a so what? The one in the 19th century was complex and included much of the pain that the relationship had caused both characters. A little more attention to the contemporary love affair -- to suggest that it was more than just a romp on location -- would have helped that dimension of the film per se and also suggested what the Victorian lovers had earned within their Hardyesque world. Was the above review useful to you? 8 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Powerful Victorian romance; the modern scenes would have been better omitted.

18 July 2007 *** This review may contain spoilers *** Although John Fowles's novel is set in the Victorian period and deals with a love affair, it is more than just a period romance. Throughout the book there is a strong authorial voice, which Fowles uses to comment on Victorian social and sexual mores, and the way in which they contrast with those of Fowles's own day. The book famously has two alternative endings, one happy and the other tragic; this device is perhaps Fowles's ironic comment on literary conventions and on the "omniscient narrator" persona which he adopts elsewhere in the work. These stylistic devices therefore mean that this is not the easiest of novels to transfer to the screen. The solution that Harold Pinter came up with was to combine Fowles's Victorian story with another story, set in the present day. The film moves back and forth between the two periods. A similar device was used in another British film of this period, "Heat and Dust", although in that case both stories were present in the film's literary source.

The Victorian part of the film tells the story of Charles Smithson, a wealthy gentleman and amateur scientist, who visits Lyme Regis in Dorset in order to search for fossils. (The area around Lyme has become known as "The Jurassic Coast" because of the rich fossil beds in the area). While there he meets and falls in love with a young woman named Sarah Woodruffe, even though he is already engaged to Ernestina, the pretty daughter of a wealthy businessman. Some years ago, Sarah was jilted by her sweetheart, a French lieutenant, and has been named by the locals "Poor Tragedy" from her habit of walking along the seashore, dressed in black, looking out to sea as though waiting for his return. The belief that she was the man's mistress has gained her the more contemptuous title of "The French Lieutenant's Whore"; the film's title derives from the reluctance of the genteel Ernestina to use the word "whore". Charles's initial feeling is simply one of concern for the young woman's welfare, but he soon feels a powerful attraction for her and decides that he must leave Ernestina for her, despite being warned by his friend Dr Grogan not to do so.

Grogan has diagnosed Sarah as suffering from what he calls "obscure melancholy", a condition which manifests itself in intense guilt feelings and in the masochistic tendency to inflict emotional pain on herself. The modern-day part of the film concerns the attempt to make a film about the story of Charles and Sarah, and the affair between Mike and Anna, the actors cast in the two leading roles. Jeremy Irons plays both Charles and Mike, and Meryl Streep both Sarah and Anna. The Victorian part of the film works very well as a powerful and potentially tragic love-story, conjuring up the sexual repression and double standards which dominated that period. Sarah and her French sweetheart were not, in fact, lovers in the physical sense, but many local people believed they were, and this suspicion has been enough to blight her life. It is unlikely that a man's reputation would have been destroyed by a casual encounter in this way. On the other hand, double standards could also sometimes work against the male sex as well. A woman, for example, who decided she had made a mistake by getting engaged would have found it much easier to break her engagement.

Charles only avoids being sued for breach of promise by signing a humiliating confession, in which he acknowledges that he has forfeited the right to be considered a gentleman, and is haunted by guilt over broken engagement, especially as Ernestina has done nothing to deserve such treatment. In the book Ernestina comes across as rather insipid, but here Lynsey Baxter, only sixteen at the time and appearing in her first film, makes her a delightful young lady. Irons and Streep are excellent as Charles and Sarah. (This was also Irons's first leading film role, and the one which made him a major star). Streep copes perfectly with the British accent, although she did perhaps sound a bit too upper-class for Sarah, who comes from a lower-middle-class background. She also looks particularly striking in this film, with her red hair and pale alabaster complexion contrasting with her black clothing. The scene where Charles first meets her, on the storm-swept Cobb in Lyme, has become one of the most iconic scenes in the cinema of the eighties.

There are also excellent performances from Leo McKern as the perceptive and kindly Grogan, from Peter Vaughan as Ernestina's doting father and from Patience Collier as Sarah's obnoxious employer Mrs Poulteney. I am a great admirer of the original novel, but what works on the printed page cannot always be transferred to the screen, and Pinter's attempt to find a cinematic equivalent to Fowles's literary devices struck me as a vain one. The modern-day love story always seemed weak and trivial by comparison with the much more serious Victorian one. Neither Mike nor Anna was a sympathetic character, especially as both were married and cheating on their spouses. When Anna decides not to leave her husband for Mike we do not feel pity for him in the way that we pity Charles when he is abandoned by Sarah. I felt that the film-makers would have done better to omit the modern scenes and to concentrate exclusively on the Victorian story. The result would have been a different film, but in my view probably a better one. Nevertheless, the film we have is a fine one. 8/10 Was the above review useful to you?

33 out of 60 people found the following review useful: Romanticism without the "base" alloy of actual feeling from Topeka, KS 11 February 2005 This is a real curio of a movie, more a dry experiment with form than a story concerning fleshed-out characters. The primary focus is on the plot developments of a film within the film--a story of two illicit lovers in 19th century England--while a secondary narrative follows the two leads in that film who pursue a similar relationship to the one they portray. The way these two stories intercut back and forth is, unfortunately, one of the few interesting things in the movie. Unique to this presentation is the way the Victorian Era scenes are shown only (with the opening scene being a lone exception) as a finished product, that is, we see that part of the film as its theoretical audience would. There are no shots of cameras in the foreground, no scenes of director and crew watching rushes in a darkened theater. This device might have allowed the viewer to become more involved in the "old-time" goings on--if only we had been given something, anything onto which we could have hung our emotional hats.

This is the insurmountable problem of "The French Lieutenant's Woman." While the Victorian Era plot is luxuriantly mounted--while the characters are played by wonderful actors--the "heart" of this film is occupied by this film within a film device. While interesting, it's not enough to keep our interest from flagging. In both story lines, emotions are uniformly muted, or absent altogether. The 20th century story is about two bored actors who engage in their affair simply as a distraction from the tedium of making a movie. No hint of passion here. The Victorian narrative at least provides a HINT of feeling, but always held at arms length--and further attenuated by the inevitable return to the modern story, reminding us that the "costumer" portion of the film is not only not real, but TWICE removed from reality. There is a scene at the end of the movie where all signs point to some grand cathartic denouement--a scene where, finally, we will be swept up into the currents of these players' lives, the promise of romance finally realized. Instead we are given an awkward, bumbled scene without so much as a kiss or an eloquent avowal of love.

We are left with a muted, distant view of the two purported lovers on a lake--its surface as calm and unmoved as the film's audience. A disappointing end to a disappointing film. Was the above review useful to you? 6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: More than just a great film. It's an experience of seeing how reality and fiction works from São Paulo, Brazil 16 July 2011 Beautiful, original and intelligent of using a certain source (a book written by John Fowles), changing the perspective presented in it and turning it into a fresh cinematic experience that is as much satisfying than the original source, the film version of "The French Lieutenant's Woman" escapes the sometimes overused routine of following the literature step by step by creating a nice way to compare life with reality, mixing two stories into basically the same context. Harold Pinter's screenplay takes the story from the book, told in the Victorian England, and adds the element of the movie within a movie, dividing it into two segments: the actors playing in a romantic film and the actors life in a current period.

Let me organize the situation: in the modern times, two actors (played by Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep, are shooting a movie whose story takes place in 1800's, with Irons playing an respected biologist engaged to a rich woman who ends up falling in love by the mysterious French Liutenant's woman (Streep), who awaits for his lover to return. During those times where moral was above anything else their romance seems to be faded to failure, almost impossible to exist since she isn't seen with good looks by society constantly called as crazy or as the French Lieutenant's whore. This is practically an unhappy story at first glance. Later, we'll notice the actors life following the same path as the characters they play except the times are other, things are a lot easier for them; they're in love with each other but they're married with other people. And this story seems a happier story than the other, also at first glance.

The intersection of both stories serves to show us not only which couple (the real one or the fictional one) might last together but also the period contrasts (there's a scene in which the actors are reading a paper with informations of how things were during the Victorian Era and they are surprised by the facts they learn) The examination one must have of both stories is the relationship between the characters played by Streep and Irons, and the way both have similarities even one being a work of fiction and the other being the reality. The only problem with the film directed by Karel Reisz is the fact we spend more time following the movie within the movie instead of following more of the actors life and their romance, which only had a notable importance when the other story was concluding as well. I'm not saying that the other story wasn't interesting but we should spend an equally balanced time with both segments so that we could see things more fairly, properly presented. Even so, the screenplay is brilliantly written and very original in terms of developing a story that goes to show the distinction between fiction and reality without playing tricks or use of excessive surprises to impress the viewers. But a film is not only its script.

"The French Lieutenant's Woman" has an fascinating and careful art direction and sceneries, beautifully made, recreating England of the 19th Century is great details; costumes and clothes are also great; the cinematography is impeccable and one of the most wonderful works I've ever seen. At last, the most interesting aspect of the film is the acting delivered by Meryl Streep (Oscar nominated for this roles, after all she plays two roles) and Jeremy Irons (he deserved a nomination that year, playing one of his first leading roles showing a great talent in carrying the whole film). I've seen them playing another couple in the underrated "The House of the Spirits" and I loved them in that film just as much as in this film. They make acting seem easy whether playing complicated characters like the ones played here or in blockbuster films as well. And their characters go through everything here, love, hate, insanity, possession, kindness, a high range of emotions that very few actors can be natural and have a certain simplicity in playing it. Sparks fly high when they're together! Where do we have the chance to be really happy? In fiction or in reality?

True love is that same kind of love we see in pictures or it's different in life? See it for yourself and think of some conclusions by watching this absolutely great film. 10/10 Was the above review useful to you? Page 1 of 6:

Question: Which playwright wrote the screenplay for the 1982 film 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'?
Answer: HAROLD PINTER